Answer Question
Past Tense Formation
I noticed that sometimes "haben" is used to form past tense (i.e. Ich habe hier gestern gekommen.), and other times I have seen "sein" used (i.e. Ich ist hier gestern gekommen.) Is there some rule to tell you which to use? Also, in the translator Yandex, from English to German it says one thing (i.e. what the lessons say to use (two verbs)) but if you then flip the translated German so that the German translation is used to translate back to English, the German changes to "Ich kam gestern hierher." I'm only a third of the way through Level 2, but I'm curious. What is the reason for learning "habe . . . bekommen" when there is a single word for the same thing "kam". Is it the "building blocks" method of teaching, because in my position "habe . . . gekommen" is easier to understand. Which version is the most common? Is it similar to "The King's English" versus how the commoners have changed the language to suit them. <smiles> I recall in English it was referred to a "prescriptive" versus "descriptive" language. Danke. Dan.